BELIEF IN WITCHCRAFT

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 10 September 1930, Page 7

BELIEF IN WITCHCRAFT

WILD FOLK OF WALES

FEAR OF "THIS EVIL EYE"

Herefordshire has been up in arms at the suggestion made before the Licensing Commission that excessive drinking of home-made cider was a source of mental deficiency in the county. .Hereford town says in effect: "It is nothing to do with us. The wild folk of the Welsh mountain border country have brought this indictment on us."

The medical oflicer of health for the county also spurns the suggestion, hut at the same time defends the people of the mountain district. In this, frankly, a correspondent says, lie found him in a distinct minority.

Investigations made in the wild hilly district along tin; border would seem to substantiate in some measure the tales heard in Hereford of a race made up of isolated communities left far behind in the march of progress. Here scattered farmsteads stand cut oil' from the world and in many cases attempts on the part of authority to approach them have resulted in flight "for fear of 'the evil eye,' " and on at least two recent occasions there lias been violence. In this wild' country there, is still a very lively belief in witchcraft and spells and a great faith in the efiicacy of "the evil eye." A County Council health visitor, who was chased down the mountain side by a man whose house she visited, told a remarkable tale. In the house to which she had been sent, she said, she found a woman who had been held prisoner in one room for 20 years because "she had been looked upon with 'the evil

eye.' " "On my second visit to this homestead," the woman said, "one of the brothers who-held the woman prisoner accused me of having 'the evil eye' and threatened me with a gun. When I turned and ran ho chased me clown the mountain, uttering terrible cries."

The medical oflicer of health for the county strongly resented the opinions expressed regarding the people. "They are by no means the decadent, feebleminded, people they are made out to bo by some in Hereford," he said. "There are cases, of course, and we rather take the view that they are best left alone until they do any hurt to other people. Dull they may be, but not mentally deficient in the main. I have no difficulty in administering the Health Acts up there and find the people very willing to respond. "As a stranger they would, of course, be nervous of you and refuse to speak. Superstitious, yes; but do you walk under ladders or omit to throw the spilled salt over your shoulder? Of course, you don't."